Between the Shadow and the Soul
by norrific
Summary: What happens when Chloe goes back to Davis after spending the night with Jimmy. Requested missing scene from Beauty's Beast


**These characters are not mine.**

**A/N:** This is for **Don't Particularly feel like i () **who asked that I expand on a scene mention my story Beauty's Beast. I really hope you like it.

**A/N 2:** This can be read seperately, but it wouldn't hurt to read Beauty's Beast first. This one takes place before Abyss, so no memory swipe. The title comes from a **Pablo Neruda** poem** 'Love Sonnet XVII'**, parts of which will be featured in this story.

When she was finally able to take air into her lungs, that is, when his lips broke from hers to kiss a path up to her ear, Chloe tilted her head to the side to give him better access. "This is different."

"Since it's the first time you've come to me and I'm not a snarling, growling, shivering mess in the middle of the bed I hope it's different good."

He found a spot just behind her ear, nearly crossing her eyes in pleasure. "Definitely good. Fabulous. Amazing."

With a smile, Davis pulled back from her.

Chloe started to pull him back into her arms, but the simply adorable smile on his face stopped her. With the serious lines of his mouth, it didn't seem possible that he could be adorable. But God help her he was. He had been on her the moment she walked into the door. Kissing her as if it was the only thing in the world he wanted to do. The fingers roaming her body alternating between tender and possessive. Her legs were locked around his waist, her hands fisted at his shoulders. He kissed her so that the only thing she wanted to do was kiss him back.

Part of her was very much aware of how wrong this was. Jimmy was back at their apartment blissfully unaware that she spent nearly every night in another man's arms. The night before she'd gone home, it was the first time in weeks she'd been there, and she felt like a stranger in her own bed. Would have slept on the couch if her speedy little friend hadn't been occupying it at the time. As it was she kept to the far end of the bed. Poor Jimmy didn't seem to notice that something was wrong.

Decent people didn't do things like this. Chloe Sullivan didn't do things like this. But then it wasn't everyday that Davis Bloome walked through a cloud of smoke and changed the world as she knew it. From the first moment he looked at her in a way no one else ever had.

_'You're hard to miss.'_

There was something about him that pulled at her. When he looked at her, she knew that he was seeing _her_. Not a database, a sounding board, or a second choice. She was just Chloe.

She was everything, Davis thought as he brushed a lock of Chloe's hair out of her eyes.

"So, are you going to tell me what brought on this mood?"

Davis continued to smile at her as he shifted her in his arms to carry her to the couch. "Just you. Wait here, I'll be back." He set her down gently, before heading towards the kitchen.

Sitting back on the couch, Chloe realized it was the first time she was able to really to take in his apartment. He had books everywhere, she liked that he was as avid a reader as she was. There were no pictures on the wall, no little mementos from his life. She'd left things, earrings, a jacket, stockings. She never knew if she did it to make his sparse apartment feel more like a home for him or to mark her territory. Because she couldn't answer for certain, she didn't like thinking about it.

So she was only half aware of what she was doing when she took off her watch and set it on his coffee table. That's when she noticed the book on his table. "Pablo Neruda. You have a very interesting collection of books here, Mr. Bloome."

"If it has words in it, I'll read it. But, I was, uh, I wanted to give that one to you." He set the tray he was carrying down on the table. "As a thank-you, for everything."

"Davis," It was obvious that it was one he'd read many times before. The pages of the book were well worn, a lot of the pages earmarked. That he would give her something, that clearly meant so much to him... "Thank-you. Which one is your favorite?"

"Love Sonnet 17." He answered absently as he opened the bottle of wine.

"Read it to me."

He laughed. "Why?"

Because she wanted something else that was his. Because he wasn't the kind of guy to read poetry to a girl. And she wanted something from him that he hadn't given to anyone else. "Just because. Read it to me."

"Alright." Sitting back he took the book from her, smiling when she crossed her legs in his lap. "_ 'I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz or the arrow of the carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.'"_

Shifting forward, Chloe lay her head on his shoulder as he continued to read. She loved his voice, so soft so soothing. The way he sometimes mumbled when he wasn't entirely sure of himself. The sexy way it dropped when he was inside of her, whispering her name and words of love that she struggled not to give back.

"_ 'I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; So I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.'_"

"It's beautiful."

"Like you."

Chloe knew what he was trying to say. Recognized his feelings in the words he read. But she couldn't say them back. Nothing in her life made since but this. But this, this thing she had with him, was the one thing that shouldn't make since. Cheating, sneaking around, it wasn't her. Yet she only felt like herself when she was with him. And that was all the more confusing. So, again, she decided to focus on something else. Turning her attention the tray he'd carried in from the kitchen. "My favorites...how'd you know?"

"You told me." Reaching over he poured her a glass of wine. "After Lois and Clark went missing, well came back anyway..." He knew she remembered the day, but it was obvious she wasn't sure what he was talking about. "Anyway you came in and said you could use a glass of wine and some chocolate."

Chloe could only vaguely remember what he was talking about. She remembered going straight to him after she was sure Lois and Clark were both safe. She'd gone to him in the middle of the day. She'd gone to him, because her cousin and best friend's ordeal kept her away. She'd gone to him because she was afraid of what she'd been able to do and knew he was the only who could truly understand. But whatever she may have said was lost among his confession of trying to stab himself in the chest and the knife shattering. And nothing she could have said could have been as important as finding out her cousin claimed to be his mother before running him through with a pole. "How could you remember something so insignificant?"

"Nothing about you is insignificant to me."

Reaching out, Chloe cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand before leaning in to press a tender kiss to his lips. How could anyone respond to that? This man, this intensely beautiful man, felt for her what she never thought anyone would. Loved her as she--

Chloe cut the thought off. She couldn't feel for him the way he did for her. She was marrying Jimmy. That was the man she was suppose to love completely. Jimmy was the man who was suppose to love her and look at her the way Davis was right now. Whose words were suppose to affect her the Davis' did.

"So, wine and chocolate? Are we celebrating?"

"Sort of. I, uh, got a promotion today."

"Oh my God, Davis that's great. The supervisor position?" Placing the glass he handed her back on the table, Chloe threw her arms around his neck. He worked so hard, carried everyone of the people he treated around with him, and wanted nothing more for his hard work than to know he was helping people. "I'm so proud of you."

Davis buried his face in her neck, soaking up the moment, the feeling of home she created for him. In the whole of his life, no one had ever spoke those simple words to him. He didn't understand how it was she was able to do this to him. What it was about her that made everything in his world right.

Growing up the way he had, Davis had never thought he'd find true happiness. Which he accepted. But he thought he could live with being okay. Then all of a sudden, one day Chloe was there, and just looking at her made him the happiest he'd ever been in his life. His whole life he'd gone around feeling like a visitor, detached from the world itself. And then she looked at him with those mermaid eyes, gave him that unbelievably beautiful smile, and made him feel as if he mattered. Made him feel as if for the first time he belonged. He felt as if he belonged with her. _To_ her.

He'd never belonged to anyone. Never been a part of anything. And, really, he never wanted to be. Now he realized that it was this thing inside of him pulling away, rejecting society. Then- again- Chloe was there. He _wanted_ to belong to her. Both the man and the monster understood that to be hers would be....everything. And he wanted, even if just for a night, for Chloe to be his. _Only_ his.

Taking her hand in his Davis placed a gentle kiss to her palm. "I want you so much, Chloe."

The need in his whispered words nearly took her breath away. "You have me." And though she couldn't admit it aloud, Chloe knew that he had all of her. "I'm right here, Davis. You have me."

Davis shook his head in denial. "Not really." Not all of her. She was to be another man's wife. And could never be mine, he thought. "I just want one night."

"For what?" Not one last night, Chloe thought a bit frantically. However wrong this might be, she didn't think she could go back to a life without knowing his touch. "What do you want?" Because she'd give it. She'd give him whatever he wanted to keep him in her life.

"I just want to touch you..." As if I have the right. As if you're mine. "I know that with your friend coming in for the night, you had to be there. But I can't get out of my mind that you were with..._him."_

"Nothing happened."

Maybe he knew that. Maybe he also knew that he didn't have the right to ask that she not be with the man she was going to marry. But he loved her. And that love knew no reason. "I can't touch you tonight while you're wearing his ring. Not after you were in his bed. Not after he was able to watch you sleep, to wake up beside you." The fingers on her hips were pressing deep, bruising her. Claiming her in the only way he knew how. "Please, Chloe." Love _me._ Need _me_.

Those deep chocolate eyes holding fast to hers, Chloe nodded. Though she wasn't entirely sure what it was she was agreeing to. But she wanted to give him everything. Give him all of herself. The way he gave all of himself to her.

Chloe could feel his lips press into her palm again as his hand left her hip to cup her breast. Nothing mattered after that. Not Jimmy. Not his ring. There was just Davis. And the way only he could make her feel.


End file.
